Iranupdated 45m ago2 min read
Iran’s Esmaeil Baqaei Accuses UN Rapporteur Mai Sato of Whitewashing US, Israel Crimes
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Iran's Baqaei accuses UN Special Rapporteur Mai Sato of whitewashing US and Israeli crimes. Iran says the UN rights mechanism deflects US and Israeli aggression.
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Iran attacks UN rapporteur
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei accused the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran of whitewashing what he described as crimes committed by the United States and ‘Israel’. Baqaei said, “Regardless of the politically motivated nature of the mandate imposed on the Human Rights Council by the UK, exploiting the so-called Special Rapporteurship on the Situation of Human Rights in Iran to blame Iran for the crimes committed by the US and ‘Israel’ amounts to nothing less than a deliberate attempt to whitewash aggression, atrocities, and unilateral coercive measures.”
Baqaei made the remarks in response to the latest report by Mai Sato, the UN special rapporteur, which was submitted to the UN General Assembly and published on the UN website on October 28. Sato’s report covered the period from February to August 2026 and claimed that US-Israeli military strikes compounded what she described as “domestic repression” in Iran.
Mandate called politically motivated
Baqaei argued that the mandate imposed on the Human Rights Council by the UK was politically motivated, and he described the UN mechanism as being used to shift blame onto Iran. Baqaei wrote, “Such an approach is deeply misleading and profoundly disingenuous.”
Mai Sato’s report, as described in the sources, said that between February and August 2026 the Iranian civilian population was caught between “external aggression” and “internal repression.” The report also warned that the war had not eased the Iranian Government’s repression of its own citizens, but had hardened it, continuing with arbitrary executions and alleged illegitimate killings carried out by the state security forces.
Repression, telecom blackout
The UN account cited in the sources said the Iranian government used wartime powers on its own territory to frame protests as actions orchestrated by the United States and Israel and to file espionage charges against peaceful expressions. The sources also said the international body denounced a three-month telecommunications blackout, describing it as serving to conceal executions and forced disappearances during the same weeks.
Baqaei continued to reject the mandate, describing it as a politically motivated instrument used by Western powers to pressure the Islamic Republic. The sources further said Sato concluded that Iran’s international armed conflict with the United States and Israel and the actions of Tehran’s authorities mutually aggravated the harms suffered by the population.